Explaining the Rise of Donald Trump

Whenever I read or hear a news story about the perplexing rise of Donald Trump, I myself am confused. Confused, not by Trump’s rise, but how predictable his rise was given the politics of the past decade.

The Republican Party did such an expert marketing job for the past 8 years that it actually worked. Being a “Washington insider,” for some reason, became a dirty thing. “Outsiders” were hailed as saviors. This gave rise to the Tea Party movement and laid the foundation for Donald Trump. With zero political experience whatsoever, he is the consummate outsider. Even Ted Cruz, who tries to portray himself as an outsider amongst equals fails in one major respect – he holds a political office.

As part of their hatred of all things Obama, the Republican Party waged short-term warfare with the president. As Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Senate Majority Leader, famously said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Leadership rallied the party around denying the president any “wins” instead of advancing a longer-term agenda for their party or the American people. They made defeating Obamacare a priority, for example, over advancing healthcare for Americans who don’t have it. The problem is, short-term strategies only achieve short-term gains and in the long run, Americans prefer our elected representatives to fight for us, not against each other.

Regardless if it was a good idea or not, the Republican party’s short-term strategy worked. They tied up the system, frustrated the president and incited their base. All positive checks in the short-term gains column. But it came at two significant costs. At some point it became exhausting – both for the politicians waging the war, and the population that had to watch it play out. And, it distracted the party from maintaining any sense of a broader, more long-term and inspiring vision. In fact, the lack of a clear vision from either party made for ripe conditions for someone like Donald Trump to step in to stoke our fears.

Vision, be it Ronald Reagan’s shining city on a hill or John F. Kennedy’s moonshot, inspires us. It infuses a nation with hope and optimism for a brighter future. Optimistic vision challenges us to come together to help build something that is good for all of us. Most of all, it offers us a sense of psychological safety – the feeling that our leaders have our interests at heart.

Absent a compelling vision of a brighter future, our collective sense of safety gives way to paranoia, cynicism, mistrust and self-interest. And when those conditions exist, all it takes is for a big ego-driven personality to agitate any sense of insecurity we may feel to gain support and get a rise out of the population. This is how so many dictators came to power. It didn’t matter if they made sense – what mattered was that they promised to take care of the thing we blamed for making us feel uneasy about our own state. In the case of Donald Trump, Mexicans, Muslims and others.

That Donald Trump has little viable policy ideas to back up his fear stocking is irrelevant. As a PR expert explained to me, people don’t listen to television, they watch it. And Donald Trump is pretty fantastic to watch.

This is not the first time in politics we neglected the power of television. Political historians often refer to the first televised debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy and the famous bead of sweat that dripped down Nixon while Kennedy was poised and composed…and dry. Anyone who listened to the debates on the radio thought Nixon won. But those who watched it on TV gave the win to Kennedy. Television helped Kennedy win that election and television is helping Donald Trump.

Simply because screens are a mainstay of politics now doesn’t mean the rules have changed. In fact, it may be worse now. Few of us listen to the debates on the radio anymore…we almost all watch them. In fact, since television was introduced, we’ve only had two presidents shorter than 6 feet tall – Jimmy Carter at 5’9½” and George W. Bush at 5’11½”.

In an age of television the 6’ tall Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, is certainly tall enough to be president. He also seems the most rational, reasonable, optimistic and electable Republican on the stage. But that’s only if you pay very close attention to the words he’s saying. On television, he has no presence whatsoever. And, as a result, he lags woefully behind all of the other more tele-savvy candidates.

All these factors add up to one huge conclusion – Americans are sick of politicians. ALL politicians. Republicans and Democrats. That Congress has an approval rating below 15% and hasn’t had an approval rating above 25% (which is still pretty abysmal) since 2009 should tell politicians something. THEY are the problem. We are tired of politicians checking polls before telling us what they think. We are tired of politicians placing their career ambitions ahead of ours. We are tired of politicians standing together against something instead of standing together for something.

People don’t love who Donald Trump is, they love who he’s not. And Hilary Clinton should be worried.

Comments

Simon - Very interesting looking back and I had said it all along you NAILED IT not here but in your Ted Talk. Hillary always dealt with the "what" and the "how" (policy wonks) and Trump nailed the WHY (a leader). From reading your article and reading the comments no one believed Americans were suffering. Trump hit the WHY with his now historical slogan "Make America Great Again". It was that simple. He gave the public the WHY. Why he was doing what he was doing (agree or disagree he was very clear while Hillary had NO WHY) and why you should vote for him. I credit you for getting Trump elected because I am sure he is a fan of yours. As a believer in disruption as the way to progress so goes politics. Neither party was willing to self-disrupt(and they will or would never - no industry self disrupts) and so we have Trump as President. I laugh as all the disrupters try to discredit the efforts of Trumps disruptions. They laughed at Musk. Bezos was going bankrupt. Branson is a looser. At the time, all the experts counted these guys out when ever they hit a rough spot and now we are praising them as heroes of the world like they are part of the some super hero team (Oh all had HUGE EGOS - just like Iron Man) - Same can go for Trump. We all need to step back and make sure we are working for the GOOD OF ALL in this nation otherwise this nation will not longer exist as it is known today.

As a Canadian and having watched the leadership debacle of the crack infused mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford I can't help see the similarities to Donald Trump. In Trumps case he is addicted to narcissism and as you point out Simon, thrives on paranoia, cynicism, and mistrust. What was most interesting about Fords journey was looking at who was passionate about his "cause" and why. It was the blue collar, going against the grain citizen who like Trumps followers have had enough of being "shafted by the man" so to speak. The driver at the outset, as it appears to be with Trump, was that outsider status (Ford is a millionaire businessman as well) but soon morphed to a pack mentality that simply became passionate about winning at any cost, even is the cost resulted in less. Ford was really only stopped by an aggressive cancer that caused him to step down, but the underlying cancer of our communities still exists. To arrest this cancer that is permeating so much of our culture requires a prescription of Simon. Stop focusing on WHAT we can do to get our pound of flesh, and HOW we are going inflict the most damage and start with the WHY. We need someone to present the idea that begins with the question of uncovering or rediscovering what we are genuinely passionate about and how we can invest in each other to find the gold in ourselves and each other. A passion rooted in relationships rallying together, like post 9/11, will create a space to move from intractable positions to underlying needs desires, concerns and fears. Trust is in short supply these days and a healthy conflict management system, personally and organizationally is the prescription to building trust both here in Canada and the United States!

Clear, Accurate, and very Worrying.
Completely agree with the sentiment and even strongly believe an outsider must come and do a thorough spring clean in the house of politics (both in the US and beyond). However, I fear the day that the most influential position on the planet, is controlled by a man that is driven by negativity.

What is needed to get the right outsider at the helm? How can we influence the course of this onslaught, and move it towards a better future for all?